Are negative opinions of Civ6 allowed here?

[GhostSalsa]

Why bring up V's hardly functional release state as a sign of optimism for VI?

What V showed that Firaxis could release a pared-down, totally unbalanced sketch of a game, and grow the brand for three years of expansions.

Whereas BE showed that they could release a complex, fairly balanced and stable game full of meaningless micro decisions, never patch their way to the core lack of fun factor for most players, and fizzle into obscurity

Which example does VI suggest itself to be following? If anything Firaxis should have showed they learned the lesson of the V release debacle, by repeating it

 

[God of Kings]

Firaxis doesn't really care about its customers; they are only interested in money.

Mid-sized developers such as Paradox and Frontier care more about their customers.

 

[nzcamel]

Why bring up V's hardly functional release state as a sign of optimism for VI?

What V showed that Firaxis could release a pared-down, totally unbalanced sketch of a game, and grow the brand for three years of expansions.

Whereas BE showed that they could release a complex, fairly balanced and stable game full of meaningless micro decisions, never patch their way to the core lack of fun factor for most players, and fizzle into obscurity

Which example does VI suggest itself to be following? If anything Firaxis should have showed they learned the lesson of the V release debacle, by repeating it

I think you're not giving some pretty intelligent people -who have 'given' (yes we paid for it - but a very low price!) most of us thousands of hours of fun- much credit here.

Firaxis doesn't really care about its customers; they are only interested in money.

Mid-sized developers such as Paradox and Frontier care more about their customers.

Without customers...you don't get money. The two are one and the same.

 

[Gub]

Firaxis doesn't really care about its customers; they are only interested in money.

Mid-sized developers such as Paradox and Frontier care more about their customers.

Jeesh so much idealism\fanboyism.. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE Paradox and generally try to support mid-sized developers that cater to my tastes. But lets be honest, the reason to support these companies is because they make more niche market content, not because they are philanthropist who make more polished games with their more limited resources

Moderator Action: Calling someone, or referring to their opinion as, a fanboy is considered trolling on this site. Please find a better way to express your opinion. leif

Take Hoi3 for example, it was released broken, I had to manually edit savegames removing hundreds of MB of duplicate stuff, to avoid the game choking and crashing. At the time there were many HOI2 fans who felt left out, calling HOI3 a streamlined crap, a step back from the complexity of its mods and extensions in favor of visuals.. and basically all the things you said. Also while the sheer amount of details and more focused scenario in HOI give better appearance of good AI to new folks, any veteran know how impotent and easily exploitable the AI really is..


Anyway back on topic, have you ever seen constructive criticism discouraged or maybe is it something else that is discouraged? Btw you familiar with Fan Dumb trope:

Fan Dumb tend to be someone with an overdeveloped sense of entitlement and/or victimization and (usually) an underdeveloped sense of humor or perspective about the subject of their fandom, coupled with an obsessive level of an interest and (frequently) some rather irrational views on the whole thing, and finally mixed with that inability to distinguish fact from opinion and/or disagreement from hatred

 

[need my speed]

Is that accurate though (factual), or was it just the loss of the isometric view which made it feel smaller?
I'd swear they get smaller with each new version!

It is factual... Maybe. I definitely know that the Earth map of Civilization III is far larger than Civilization IV's one, for example, and a popular Middle-Earth map of Civilization III is so huge that it is impossible to even generate such a large map in Civilization IV, even if you mod it; the game just can't handle such a size. Speaking of the basic games' Huge size, I am pretty sure that Civilization III still creates larger maps - though Civilization IV has the map script Terra that may be even larger, but if so, that is just one map script, with the others being smaller - but I am not 100% sure.

So they do, yes, ever since III. IV is fine, to me, but V and VI, especially because they have so many mechanics that also reduce the feeling of a map's size - one unit per tile, city-states, hexes, a minimum of three (?) hexes distance between a city, a city using three rings... - have slid too far away from what an empire-builder game would be, in my eyes.

Allowing diagonal movement in a square grid makes them go "farther" than 1 tile with one move point. That is, it's almost always better to move diagonally. For a hex grid, that doesn't happen.

Certainly, and this is why I found it weird to see people arguing for squares.

For Civ 6, there's also the issue with adjacencies. Allowing diagonal adjacency makes the bonus overwhelmingly powerful, while not allowing it makes them even worse than now. City packing will also be greatly increased due to radius of effect: a 7x7 area might support up to 9 cities, discouraging even more growing cities and even improving tiles.

That is a good argument for Civilization VI, yes.

But I would rank my scale argument higher than both. Perhaps a hex could be split in half? But then we'd have two types of tiles, that may be very odd.

 

[nzcamel]

It is factual... Maybe. I definitely know that the Earth map of Civilization III is far larger than Civilization IV's one, for example, and a popular Middle-Earth map of Civilization III is so huge that it is impossible to even generate such a large map in Civilization IV, even if you mod it; the game just can't handle such a size. Speaking of the basic games' Huge size, I am pretty sure that Civilization III still creates larger maps - though Civilization IV has the map script Terra that may be even larger, but if so, that is just one map script, with the others being smaller - but I am not 100% sure.

So they do, yes, ever since III. IV is fine, to me, but V and VI, especially because they have so many mechanics that also reduce the feeling of a map's size - one unit per tile, city-states, hexes, a minimum of three (?) hexes distance between a city, a city using three rings... - have slid too far away from what an empire-builder game would be, in my eyes.

Certainly, and this is why I found it weird to see people arguing for squares.

That is a good argument for Civilization VI, yes.

But I would rank my scale argument higher than both. Perhaps a hex could be split in half? But then we'd have two types of tiles, that may be very odd.

Someone was saying (I'll find their post later) that the 64 bit will allow for massive maps!!(depending on your computer I spose).
I hope they're right

Yeah, I know there's mods that already address the smaller size; but I'd prefer to not go down that road till there's an official way to download them into the game.

 

[Gedemon]

It did feel like IVs maps were smaller than III's. Is that accurate though (factual), or was it just the loss of the isometric view which made it feel smaller?
I'd swear they get smaller with each new version! And in VI they have grrrrr (large & huge).

That was an impression, there are a few posts buried deep in the forum explaining the difference (like this one), and yes, it's somehow related to the isometric view, there are less plots to expand or explore on a Civ3 map than there are on a civ4/civ5/civ6 map with the same grid size.

Civ 6 engine allows maps (much) larger than civ5/civ4, but you'll need a lot of video RAM.

 

[need my speed]

That was an impression

But that post itself details that the maps, except for Terra, are indeed smaller. The 'per civ area' is larger, but that is nonsense, for we aren't restricted to sixteen civilisations or whatnot. And then it compares 70% water with highlands, yeah, no kidding that the latter offers more land tiles.

 

[c4c6]

Squares offer eight directions, while hexes only offer six (less positioning, less ways of flanking).

I seem to remember that in II it [From civ1 til civ4 "irrigation" distributed fresh water from lake or river via adjacent squares from farm to farm ... often interrupted by "evil" hills ...] worked a bit differently... I think coastal water (i.e salt) could be used for irrigation too. III limited it to rivers.

Oh well, maybe I was too focused on the point I tried to amplify: Squares offer four or eight directions, depending on what you are describing. If you need an edge and not just an infinite small point, squares offer four directions, e.g. for irrigation in the older CIVs or for supporting/flanking effects . Look @ a map & compare: 2 hexes left & right with a COMMON edge ("supporting each other") and pressure from 2 enemy hexes (above and below) trying to split them ... can't you feel the support of the 2 adjacent hexes? Now look at 2 "adjacent" white squares on the chessboard ... how strong is their support for each other compared to pressure from 2 black squares trying to split them?!!! And perhaps you have the contrary situation: aren't the 2 black squares closer 'together' and the white squares try to split these??

I see squares have 4 + 4 directions, the second 4 sometimes useless, somehow inconsistent, always distorted in distances. On a hex map: what you see is what get. On a square grid: Is it more diagonal or axial or 'how much in between' ...

Btw, in civ2 (with the rivers ON the squares instead of in between the tiles) I loved exploring along the rivers as they provided Road-Movement from the beginning (6 tiles for mounted units).
And no, the rivers flow used just the 4 "really adjacent" squares. This made them quite ugly compared to hexTileRivers (them same with hill chains etc.)

 

[need my speed]

Mhm-hm, though I would point out that, for example, irrigation worked in eight directions, as did roads.

 

[MyOtherName]

Oh well, maybe I was too focused on the point I tried to amplify: Squares offer four or eight directions, depending on what you are describing. If you need an edge and not just an infinite small point, squares offer four directions, e.g. for irrigation in the older CIVs or for supporting/flanking effects . Look @ a map & compare: 2 hexes left & right with a COMMON edge ("supporting each other") and pressure from 2 enemy hexes (above and below) trying to split them ... can't you feel the support of the 2 adjacent hexes? Now look at 2 "adjacent" white squares on the chessboard ... how strong is their support for each other compared to pressure from 2 black squares trying to split them?!!! And perhaps you have the contrary situation: aren't the 2 black squares closer 'together' and the white squares try to split these??

Interesting; I was already heavily into board games and video games when I was very little; nothing about squares with lateral movement only nor squares with diagonal movement allowed too seems unusual to me, since movement on such grids is an ingrained part of how I see the world.

(although I always found it weird that people often try to draw circles in such an environment, rather than the more natural diamonds or squares -- e.g. the big fat cross)

It has never even occurred to me that people can't see what's going on in such grids. I don't think I've ever seen hex grids defended in such terms either.

 

[c4c6]

Mhm-hm, though I would point out that, for example, irrigation worked in eight directions, as did roads.

Roads & Railroads certainly axdiagonal. Rivers _not_. And diagonal irrigation?!!! Mhm-hm, uumphh, really? Well. I suppose, you write that, because you are sure that I'm wrong it that detail. In civ1, civ2, civ3, civ4? Ok. I never went back and played the older versions again. And 'memory fault'. (Haha, this joke works especially in german.)

Probably we both know well the principle square weaknesses and hexes strength.

I think, the effect of square-hexagon tiles alone on map sizes is quite small. 1upt has MUCH more impact.
To 'split hexes in half'?? The _unique_ advantage of hexagon tiles is the uniform behaviour in all directions.

PS. I thought, 'just axial irrigation' was an implemented rule, maybe not. I used often additional "rules". Like 'delayed settling', 'which next tech', 'that wonder allowed this game' ... by throwing dice ... you know why, but I do not write it - as the question goes on and on: Are negative opinions allowed here?

 

[need my speed]

Well, as for irrigation...

T.T.2.
1.1.T.
T.1.T.

If the 1 represents a river, then 2 can have an irrigated farm (where T is 'Tile'), but if 1 is a farm, then a farm on 2 wouldn't be irrigated.

But as for rivers, in IV, they certainly do not go diagonally - so they probably do not in III either.

What would this 'memory fault' joke be? I am Dutch, so I can probably understand the German.

And yes, certainly, one unit per tile is much more of a negative.

I am quite tired though, so perhaps I am just spouting more nonsense.

 

[c4c6]

......I...........
RRRRRR......RRRRRR
.....R......R.....
...IIRRRRRRRR.....
.......I....I.....
..IIIIII....I..NN.
.N..I...N...III...
....I...N.....IIII
In that example . represents grasslands, R river, I valid irrigation, N non valid irrigation tiles

I forgot the allowed diagonal irrigation direct @ the river - from farm to farm irrigation was allowed only axial (iirc )
Whole continents could be irrigated from 1 river, but sometimes "evil" hills & mountains interrupted the ribbons and half continents remained dry.

A friend had problems with the RAM in his PC. The error message on booting was 'memory fault', he took the german meaning for the word 'fault', so he reported later "Memory rots" as reason for his computer problems. [Memory decays?]

 

[Lemon Merchant]

I'm a little late to the party, but I will address the OP...

In my humble experience, negative opinions are frowned upon in these forums, and in some cases, even a simple question can result in the most misplaced nerd-rage that it's unbelievable. Particularly if it involves the upcoming, soon to be released Civ game. Speculation is ridiculed, discussion is quashed, and any sort of dissenting opinion is met with harsh rhetoric.

I can recall the weeks leading up to the release of Civ 5. The rancor and vitriol was at a level that most of us had never seen on these forums before. Asking a question, making an even slightly negative comment, or theorizing a possible modding scenario, would get you your head served on a platter. I'm not the only one. From earlier in this thread:

When you just wanted to know something about Civ5 or share possible future changes it should undergo, etc., your thread would be drown in vitriol and rage. It basically made every forum for the game entirely unfit for purpose because it was a repetitive, endless cycle of rage and moaning. I think that's why people aren't always open to negative opinions near the release of a Civ title.

A few of us, during the release phase of Civ 5, speculated that a large group of 12 to 15 year olds had suddenly commandeered mummy's laptop and had discovered the forums here at CFC. Posters certainly weren't acting like the (mostly) adults that we knew from the Civ 4 forums. They were acting like a group of badly behaved children. In some cases, that is still true today. The pre-launch of Civ 6 saw some "interesting" discussion, though the mods kept a better handle on things than they did during the launch of Civ 5, so it didn't get too out of hand. It was still depressing to watch.

I've been lurking on the Civ 6 forums to find out more about the game. If it's any good, what are the state of the patches, etc. I still see some of the same bullies that I saw during the Civ 5 launch. Some are old, some are new, and some have different names, but they are all the same and interchangeable. They exist to shut down discussion if you don't agree with their point of view. If you don't toe the line you get attacked. Plain and simple.

So, my dear OP, you are right. There is no room for negative comments on these forums anymore. That seems to have gone out the window a few years ago. You can take solace in one thing though. Some of those very people who were bullying people and browbeating them for having a question or negative opinion before the launch of Civ 6, are now themselves criticizing the game. The best part is that most of them have now left the forums, hopefully not to return. But it's like that in all the forums I belong to.

I leave you with one thought: Say what you have to say, and to hell with the opinions of someone else. There are good people out there who will listen. And there are better games out there, too.

 

[rezaf]

Hey, if yall are still looking for someone who preferred tiles, I'm you man. My main reason is that I think they can produce prettier maps and feel more natural in a way.
Also, while hexes do have the potential to make a game more tactical, this has not worked properly in Civ5 and does not work properly in Civ6 - because these are global scale strategy games, where small scale tactical effects are misplaced.
Same with 1UPT. Disregarding the oft-discussed AI issues they raised, these changes have not "destroyed" Civ, but they have transformed it into a (slightly) different kind of game for a (slightly) different audience.

 

[Gorbles]

I'm a little late to the party, but I will address the OP...

In my humble experience, negative opinions are frowned upon in these forums, and in some cases, even a simple question can result in the most misplaced nerd-rage that it's unbelievable. Particularly if it involves the upcoming, soon to be released Civ game. Speculation is ridiculed, discussion is quashed, and any sort of dissenting opinion is met with harsh rhetoric.

I can recall the weeks leading up to the release of Civ 5. The rancor and vitriol was at a level that most of us had never seen on these forums before. Asking a question, making an even slightly negative comment, or theorizing a possible modding scenario, would get you your head served on a platter. I'm not the only one. From earlier in this thread:

A few of us, during the release phase of Civ 5, speculated that a large group of 12 to 15 year olds had suddenly commandeered mummy's laptop and had discovered the forums here at CFC. Posters certainly weren't acting like the (mostly) adults that we knew from the Civ 4 forums. They were acting like a group of badly behaved children. In some cases, that is still true today. The pre-launch of Civ 6 saw some "interesting" discussion, though the mods kept a better handle on things than they did during the launch of Civ 5, so it didn't get too out of hand. It was still depressing to watch.

I've been lurking on the Civ 6 forums to find out more about the game. If it's any good, what are the state of the patches, etc. I still see some of the same bullies that I saw during the Civ 5 launch. Some are old, some are new, and some have different names, but they are all the same and interchangeable. They exist to shut down discussion if you don't agree with their point of view. If you don't toe the line you get attacked. Plain and simple.

So, my dear OP, you are right. There is no room for negative comments on these forums anymore. That seems to have gone out the window a few years ago. You can take solace in one thing though. Some of those very people who were bullying people and browbeating them for having a question or negative opinion before the launch of Civ 6, are now themselves criticizing the game. The best part is that most of them have now left the forums, hopefully not to return. But it's like that in all the forums I belong to.

I leave you with one thought: Say what you have to say, and to hell with the opinions of someone else. There are good people out there who will listen. And there are better games out there, too.

The problem is, this is just your opinion (as you state).

So why do you make your opinion out to be some kind of universal truism? Why do you dismiss the repeated attempts to pull down people who defend the game (which you indulge in too, actually). Why do you discriminate based on (perceived) age of forum posters, like that actually has a hard correlation to maturity?

 

[nzcamel]

Why do you discriminate based on (perceived) age of forum posters, like that actually has a hard correlation to maturity?

Well...age does have a hard correlation with maturity

 

[Gorbles]

I know just as many immature and narrow-minded adults, even those who are middle-aged. Anecdotal, but hey. Maturity is often a hard thing to define, and it's often lacking in online debates where age is used as a way to dismiss peoples' arguments

 

[Oleary]

The problem is, this is just your opinion (as you state).

So why do you make your opinion out to be some kind of universal truism? Why do you dismiss the repeated attempts to pull down people who defend the game (which you indulge in too, actually). Why do you discriminate based on (perceived) age of forum posters, like that actually has a hard correlation to maturity?

Seems like you're making her point for her? She states an opinion and you're accusing her of making it a truism. She "speculated" on the ages of the folks but there is a direct correlation between maturity and age. Mature does mean adult after all. Are there exceptions, certainly. But if you see a group acting immaturely it's certainly reasonable to expect them to be immature (i.e. not adults).

For what it's worth, I don't think the OP's problem is that big of deal. If you come to a board about a specific topic and criticize the topic, you're going to get grief. This is the internet, the good, the bad and the ugly...